John McWhorter makes this point quite often, though he never puts it so pithily.

quote:

America's education debate, roughly, is between A) people who think talent is mostly inborn and just want to screen for it, and B) people who think talent is mostly inborn and want desperately to avoid screening for it.

The "actually, a lot of skill is learned, and if we work hard we can educate almost everyone to be a lot better at stuff" caucus is just nearly nonexistent in this country.

I think this has been largely true since NCLB failed/was abandoned.

I completely disagree.

I see a large and not-silent bloc that thinks that it is possible to teach skill, but that it requires money and effort and therefore that only the privileged are given the opportunity. In a world of limited resources, those who have the ability to acquire the limited resources (in this case, quality teaching) are advantaged.

And let's not even get into the fact that your kid and my kids were taught from the cradle that they were smart and capable, so they believed that it wasn't a waste of effort to try to learn. There may be children in this country who are equally smart and equally capable but don't get the same encouragement and therefore don't have the same belief in their abilities and in their opportunity to succeed.

Well, I'll have a little article coming out in POLITICO sometime in the near future, so that'll suggest where I stand ...

I haven't read the article, so maybe I should say I have Noahpinion, but ...

A casual look at the structure of the US higher education system suggests that we're better than anyone else in the world at helping people who wouldn't get a sniff at post-secondary education to improve themselves in a college or university setting. We have non-selective public 2-years and public regionals, and minimally selective private colleges that welcome low-income students whose SATs (when they were important) partly reflect their background (low income), and who are perfectly capable of learning.

The marginal student may even have as large or larger a ROI than "more talented" students, when compared against their counterfactual earnings without any degree or credential. More talented students may acquire more human capital per year in school, but they are also likely to have done better without a degree too.

Sometimes I forget I’m the only one here with a kid in K-12.

I don’t think Noah’s point is about higher Ed. It does align with what I see happening in K-12 in NYC, where instead of working to close education gaps we stigmatize the measurement of them. I don’t think history will judge this well.

You may be guilty of extrapolating what you think you see to everywhere else.

Besides, doesn't NYC have a few designated high achievement high schools, like Bronx Science?

We have them only because NY state didn’t let DeBlasio end them.

Hah, and I think everything must be about higher ed!

Jon, doesn't federal law mandate some form of "gifted" or "high achievement" programming? I know that parents have used that language as a shield against extreme forms of egalitarian heterogeneous grouping. And most jurisdictions have put language in their charters about "meeting children's needs" in each grade level, whatever their initial level of understanding and capacity for growth.

I'll go look up the language again ...

I was on our district's "gifted advisory committee" for a number of years and fought off attempts to eliminate flexible grouping and to eviscerate enrichment. Some teachers were naturals at differentiation and deeply believed that all children should be given the opportunity to accelerate beyond standard (dumbed down) grade curriculum. Others were hostile to the idea. And some were simply incapable of doing it for reasons ranging from laziness to incompetence. [footnote]

[footnote] ... and one working definition of privilege was having the insider understanding and the pull to ensure that your children got the teachers who were willing and able to meet their needs best rather than simply accepting what the school chose for you.

Re: DeBlasio ...

The protections are state by state.

Here is Virginia's ...

Gifted Education Regulations

Does NY have any law backing the education of the right tail